When I played WoW, some of the (bad) people in my guild could only do heroics with LFG since it gave a substantial buff.That was kind of sad...

That's the rub of MMORPGs. It's a service-based industry as much, if not moreso, than a gaming one. There's a very precarious balance that has to be maintained between accessibility and challenge. Risk vs. Reward is a cornerstone of the entire experience. While making a game more accessible potentially increases your userbase, it does not guarantee a stable subscriber base if your players don't feel invested in the content. Trying to appeal to the Everyman eventually means everyone loses interest sooner, rather than later.

WoW at this point in time is a cautionary tale. Here is hoping Yoshida and SE keep Blizzard's missteps in mind.

This gear problem always reminds me of Ragnarok Online which has the answer to the problem but nobody ever realized it.

In RO, you have to be very lucky and dedicated to get the best gear.I played for years up to the point were I had a lvl 97 Champion (about a 3 year commitment)

My armor was still the armor that drops off mobs anyone lvl 40+ can kill.The 2 upgrades possible were on really strong bosses that me and my guild never managed to beat.Did I ever feel bad about wearing the easily accessible armor? Not really. The difference between the 3 armor is very slight.The 2 upgrades are definitively better and I would equip those without a second thought, but it's small enough that I never felt bad about not having them.Although it let me dream about it... and keep trying. Gods knows how many times we challenged Valkyrie Rangris...

[1] means a card slot; cards vary in power and usefulness but generally, you want a card slot.The Best armor in the game has 11 defense for comparison. Defense is in % of physical damage reduced.

What you're referring to is called horizontal progression. It's why FFXI is still in business as well. Allowing different gear options for varying situations, such as "Magic Defense +X%" and whatnot.

Vertical progression is a newer trend, and a focus on it is WoW's downfall.

Right now, from the leaked stats, we're looking at almost entirely pure vertical progression in XIV gear, which I absolutely can't stand. They're going to need to add some traits to Materia, like, say "Enhances Regen potency" or "Enhances X skill." I'm okay with the vertical progression, for now, because I expect the level cap toi increase with the first expansion. But after the cap increase and if we're still entirely vertical, that's when I'd be worried about longevity.

I really dont think theres a problem with vertical progression if its done sensibly and not in orders of magnitude (see WoW where expansion quest gear trumped old raid gear). It's much easier for the programmers and simpler for the playerbase to understand. It's also one of the major foundations of gated content, which actually lent to a sense of progression. Which, when it all boils down to it is what players want: a sense of growing stronger and more awesome. That and being a beautiful and unique snowflake.

I disagree entirely as to why that's the reason XI is still around, but that's another thread and debate entirely. XI had plenty of vertical progression even back in the day, it just wasn't as outlandish as WoW or current Seekers of Aldouin itemization. Gear swapping made collecting conditional gear to min-max spells and abilities another arms race. I think the fact that in games like RO and early XI you really didn't have many viable (realistic) options for upgrades made settling for less much more palatable.

Now we have so many more choices in MMOs that people crave break neck progression to the detriment of lore and exploration. I think it's possible to still allow people options without diminishing the sense of accomplishment and reward for achieving a notable upgrade. Ultra exclusivity on the other hand is also counterproductive. The key I believe is balance.

This may seem harsh, but gear gated content is the absolute last thing I want in ARR. It's a deal breaker for end-game and I'd cancel my sub if it was implemented. The process of it is abhorrent; it doesn't even promote good playing styles like it's intended to, it promotes luck.

Oh, I agree with there being more reason than that to XI's prolonged success (except Adoulin. What were they thinking, seriously?). XI's conditional gear is definitely horizontal progression.

I'd actually like for there to be somewhat conditional gear in this game, even though we can't actively gearswap; using my previous example of magic defense bonuses, something like specific armor with special abilities catered to tanking magic-casting mobs, but wouldn't be as good for a physical monster. I find only stat bonuses on armors to be incredibly dull, and only having one armor set for every single situation to be even worse. Again, this can be mitigated by the Materia system and by having special abilities being set onto the Materia so you can manipulate them as you please. In fact, I'd probably prefer this way if the bonuses were solid and not only something silly like "increases damage to Sahagin by 1%."

It really just depends on what one is looking for in a MMO, I suppose, and pure vertical progression is definitely not it for me even though I know the majority tends to prefer it.

Well, again.. I think the key is balance. Just like itemization, gated content can be exclusionary or so open as to be nearly worthless. In a broad sense, gated content allows structure and prioritization for players, as well as helps reinforce certain gameplay norms that can be beneficial to an MMOs community. In ARR we already have gated content. You aren't able to do dungeons until you've progressed to a point in the storyline. You can't progress to the next tier of content until you've met the goals set for the previous tier. I'm not a huge fan of jumping through 1,000 hoops for something as simple as accessing a new part of a map, or needing a small army to increase my level cap. I think the idea of a true sandbox style MMO, while enticing in theory, introduces a lot of pointless chaos. It not only robs players of a sense of direction but cheapens the entire experience because there's no established standard for performance for content, so everything becomes trivial by proxy.

I think these concepts exist and have existed for a good number of years because there is sound logic behind their rationale. I believe the problem lies more in vastly different forms of implementation. The average MMO playerbase is so polarized that its little wonder developers skew so hard to one extreme or the other. But, no matter what they do, they won't please everyone.

I really believe that having a clear cut progression structure that encourages and rewards player proficiency and teamwork is a cornerstone of a strong MMO. Giving players of all skill levels viable options for progressive content is really important. Sadly in the pursuit of pleasing the majority, many developers end up throwing the baby out with the bath water. Again, this is simply my opinion.